


Touch

by Sanity_through_Madness



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Toph doesn't especially care about personal space, Zuko trying to have an introspective moment, emotional support earthbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanity_through_Madness/pseuds/Sanity_through_Madness
Summary: So he has a scar. So what? She doesn't understand why it would be keeping him up at night...unless the play they'd seen on Ember Island had really gotten under his skin...
Relationships: Toph Beifong & Zuko, Toph Beifong/Zuko
Comments: 1
Kudos: 314





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Criminally underrated ship right here. I'll go down with it, I'm sure.

"Is the play still bothering you?"

He jumped a little, the earthbender's footsteps silent, entirely masked by the quiet waves lapping on the beach outside the Firelord's summer home on Ember Island. Given that it was past midnight, he had expected to be the only one still awake. "You really should stop sneaking up on me. I might…" He hesitated, unwilling to consider the possibility of burning her again, but understanding that it might. Terrified that it might. She had to know that by now.

"Oh, come off it already." The petite girl huffed, sitting down entirely too close, stubbornly invading his personal space, her thigh pressed against his as she made herself comfortable. For all that Team Avatar had proven to be a touchy-feely group, she, at least, had the best reason for it. The fact that he'd burned her feet - her feet, her only real way of seeing the world - hadn't seemed to deter her. Even while she had been recovering from it, she had still staunchly been on his side, arguing with the Water Tribe siblings and the Avatar over it.

He could just barely make out her cloudy eyes beneath the thick fringe of her messily hacked-off bangs as she looked out towards the water, seeing nothing. Had she ever been able to see? He had never thought to ask. Did she know what it looked like, any of it? The crescent moon hanging low on the horizon, the break of the waves on the pale shore, the stars dotting the velvet black sky?

"What."

His face flushed, flustered. "What?"

"You're staring."

"...no?"

"I'm blind, not dumb. I can still tell, you know." Like lightning, one of her small fists socks him in the shoulder.

At least his shoulders will match, now, both a little sore from her stunted way of showing affection. He supposed he didn't have any right to call out on it. It certainly wasn't like he was any better at it. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

"If you're so sorry, then answer the question. Is the play still bothering you? Other than the ending, smart ass, because we all know that's not how the story's going to go."

"...yes." His voice feels thick as he answers, his throat not entirely willing to let him admit it. "I can't...I don't want to believe that people see me that way. Obsessed with regaining my honor...that's not who I am anymore. And what they thought about Uncle, a carefree glutton...that isn't true, either."

"Well…" Her hands swung behind her head as she laid back, her knobby knees pointed skyward as her feet buried themselves in the sand. "The people who matter know it."

"They're all going to matter. Someday."

"Then hire them to write a new play. Someday. Just make sure they keep my actor the same. The man was flawless."

He laughed, the sound surprising him. "You might feel differently in a few years."

"...nah. He gets me. Stick him in a dress if you have to, but he stays."

He grinned, leaning back on the sand beside her, looking up at the star-dotted sky, letting out a long, slow sigh. 

"It's still just a play. So they have your scar on the wrong side. I didn't even know you had a scar. So they paint you out to be an idiot. You'll prove them wrong. So they make Iroh out to be a gluttonous old fool. If the man could win me over, I'm not worried about him swaying the rest of the world."

He hadn't really been expecting to feel better about any of it, but it seemed a little more...in perspective, now. The things that had mattered to him about it...well, they hadn't resonated as deeply with everyone. "...you really didn't know about the scar?"

The sigh he gets in return is nothing if not overdramatic. "How the hell would I, I'm-"

"Blind. I know."

"Don't think I won't take back that part about you not being dumb." She threatened, but it sounded like an empty one.

"It's still how a lot of people recognize me."

"So you have a scarred face. Big deal. Is it more obvious than my dead-eyed stare?"

"...yes. I can't exactly grow my hair out to cover it."

"Let me see."

"See?"

She holds her fist up threateningly, brandishing her small hand to the night sky, her pale skin almost glowing in the moonlight. "Don't you start with me, buddy, I will mess you up."

He manages to resist the urge to laugh again. He knew she would give him more trouble than the jest was worst...not to mention he wasn't entirely sure he would win. It would be downright embarrassing to lose a fight to a twelve year old. Still, he can't stop the smirk from settling on his lips. "Fine."

He wasn't expecting her to swing one of her skinny legs over his waist, her small hands fanning out on his chest as she pushed herself up to sit on his abdomen. He froze, looking up at her impassive face, her eyes hidden beneath the dark fringe of her bangs. For all that she's flat as board and thin and probably more than a little malnourished, she's still a girl, her cheeks still round with baby fat in spite of it.

"Toph, I don't think-"

"I'm not asking you to think." 

Her hands left his chest, trailing up to his neck, her palm warm against the apple of his throat when she laid it out against him, to feel his nervous swallow. Her fingers brushed over his jaw, listening to the soft rasp of facial hair that would grow in if he didn't shave.

"Which side is it on?"

"The left."

She nodded her head slightly, the heel of her hand settling against his right cheek, tracing along his nose, cheekbone, brow. She was careful around his eye, politely not commenting on the bag under his eye, from far too many days without a good rest. They all had them.

"You have long eyelashes."

"...thank you?"

"Kinda girly, but whatever."

It was with a softer hand that she explored the left side of his face, the textural change impossible to miss as her fingers skirted along the edge of it to where it disappeared into his hairline. They brushed against his ear, only long enough to feel the rough texture of the long-healed skin before running up to find the edge again, a few inches over the line of his brow.

He found himself watching her. The tilt of her head as she mapped his features with her hands. The furrow to her brow as she investigated the swath of scar tissue that covered most of the left half of his face. The way her lips thinned as she carefully brushed her thumb against his eyelid, the lack of eyebrow and eyelashes. The sudden hesitancy as her fingers dragged over his lips. The relaxing of her face when she let his go, her hands resting against her thighs before she rolled back over to be by his side.

He would never mention the faint pink stain to her cheeks. She would probably kill him if he did. And while she hadn't exactly been able to see one on him, she might have noticed his cheek burning under the palm of her hand.

"So...as bad as you thought..?"

She flicked one of her hands in the air dismissively. "For all that you were going on about it, I was expecting it to be your whole face. Disappointing."

He snorted quietly. "Sorry to let you down."

"How…" She paused, clearing her throat. "How well do you see out of that eye, or hear on that side?"

The sand scraped softly as he turned his head to look at her, more than a little surprised by the question. "My hearing is only a little off...maybe ninety percent of what it should be. The eye...maybe seventy percent. The lid healed poorly, there was no healthy skin for it to grow against, and I'm still not sure things won't go wrong with it later."

She pursed her lips as she considered this, digging her heels in against the cool damp sand below the surface. "Whatever happens...it's not even going to be close to what he deserves."

"For a long time...I wanted revenge, almost as much as I wanted his favor back. Nothing is going to give back what he took from me. Not the time spent in agony wishing I had died. Months spent chasing the Avatar. Years spent trying to win even a little of his approval. I...don't need it. I never did, really. Uncle was always there."

"We're going to find him, too."

"He...won't want to see me. Not after the things I said...what I did."

"And I'm willing to bet that you're wrong. For a firebender, you sure as hell have a chip in your shoulder. The old man is your family. Not your sadistic dad. Or your crazypants sister, for that matter. And we're your family now, too."

"Is that so..?"

"Yep. I've decided. Trade your nutso sister for Katara, who is also kind of nutso but she had her moments. Aang is the little brother you never got. Sokka gets to be the pretty brother - not that it's a crack on how you may or may not look, but I cannot in good conscience call him the smart brother."

"I suppose that's fair. And what about you?"

"Well, obviously I'm the future of this family. I invented an entirely new subclass of bending to spite a couple assholes. What the hell have you done, danced around in fire?"

"I'm going to be the next Firelord."

"And I still won't be afraid of you."

"I wouldn't want you to."

"Well, good. You almost done sulking out here?"

"I'll be in soon...I promise."

"Good. There'll be plenty to brood over tomorrow, I'm sure. Better save a little energy for that." With a soft grunt, she rolled up to her feet, brushing sand off her clothes.

He listened to the quiet scuff of her footsteps through the sand as she walked back to the dark house. If he squinted, he could make out the pale line of her arm reaching for the railing, her silhouette dark against the sliding frame door before she disappeared into the darkness within.

She seemed to have accomplished her mission, at any rate. He was no longer thinking about the play.


End file.
